BAHAMAS:The man confirmed as the biological father of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith's seven-month-old baby said yesterday that he was not planning to share custody of the child.
DNA testing revealed this week that Larry Birkhead (34) a freelance photographer from Los Angeles, is the child's father, ending a mystery that has preoccupied the US media since Smith's death from a drug overdose in February.
The child, Dannielynn, could inherit millions of dollars from the estate of Smith's late husband, J Howard Marshall II. The former model had been fighting the Texas oil tycoon's family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995, and that battle remains unresolved.
Since Smith's death, Dannielynn has been cared for by Howard Stern, who was the former model's boyfriend at the time and who claimed until this week to be the father. Mr Stern has said he will now give up his fight for custody of Dannielynn but Ms Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, has indicated that she might continue to seek custody.
Mr Birkhead said he would be happy to allow "anyone that has good intentions" to visit the baby but he ruled out sharing custody.
"It would imply that I'm unfit as a parent, which I'm not. I'm looking forward to giving Dannielynn everything that she needs and all the love and support," he said.
Smith gave birth to her daughter in the Bahamas last September, only to see her 20-year- old son, Daniel, die at her bedside days later following a drug overdose. Smith's own death in a Florida hotel room a few months later became the biggest story of the year in the US media, which has followed the bizarre legal battle that followed in the US and the Bahamas.
Mr Stern was listed on the birth certificate as Dannielynn's father but Mr Birkhead, who broke up with Ms Smith before she moved to the Bahamas last July, insisted from the beginning that he was the real father.
In keeping with the celebrity frenzy that has accompanied the court battle, Mr Birkhead said yesterday that hearing the court determine he was the child's father was like winning an Oscar.
"It was almost like being at an Academy award with a sealed envelope and then they release the name and you just sit there waiting to hear. And just to have that heavy weight off your shoulders was just incredible. It was just a magical moment."